Chittoor court awards death sentence to five accused on ex-mayor couple murder case

TIRUPATI: The VIth additional district sessions court in Chittoor awarded death sentence to five accused in the 2015 double murder case involving ex mayor Katari Anuradha and her husband Katari Mohan on Friday.

Labelling the case under the rarest of rare cases, judge N Srinivasa Rao pronounced the five accused guilty of planning and executing the double murders inside the Chittoor municipal corporation office about a decade ago in 2015. The five accused who were awarded the death sentence include S Chandrasekhar alias Chintu (A-1: Nephew of Katari Mohan), Govinda Swami Srinivasayya Venkata Chalapathi (A-2), Jayaprakash Reddy (A-3), Manjunath (A-4) and Muniratnam Venkatesh (A-5). On Nov 17 in 2015, a group of men disguised in burqas entered the Chittoor municipal corporation office and shot mayor Anuradha dead inside her chambers. Her husband was pursued and stabbed to death by the same group of assailants. During the decade long trail, it emerged that family disputes was the main motive behind the double murder. While 28 accused were initially named in the chargesheet, one among them Kasaram Ramesh was discharged from the case and S Srinivasachari died during the trial.Chittoor police imposed 144 section in the town in view of the judgement to be pronounced in the double murder case on Friday.